The present disclosure is generally related to Optical Network Units (ONUS), and more particularly to the detection of rogue ONUs using photonic mixing.
The present disclosure is related to rogue ONUs on a Passive Optical Network (PON). Rogue ONUs are devices on the PON that transmit upstream when they are not supposed to. These rogue ONUs are undesirable and very difficult to detect and troubleshoot.
A PON is a point-to-multipoint, fiber to the premises network architecture in which unpowered optical splitters are used to enable a single optical fiber to serve multiple premises. At the source of a PON is an Optical Line Terminal (OLT), typically residing at a service provider's central office (CO). Downstream from the OLT are a number of ONUs, typically near end users. The OLT can be viewed as the source and the ONUs as the multiple destinations. These ONUs can be connected in a star arrangement using optical splitters, which reside at a premise of a user. The upstream data on the PON going from the ONUs to the OLT is time-multiplexed between the ONUs.
As previously described, rogue ONUs are devices on the PON that erroneously transmit upstream. As such, upstream light sources may interfere with one another. Therefore, what is needed is an ability to overcome the problems and limitations of detecting these rogue ONUs.